But how many of those drivers know the history of the 88-year-old landmark?

Seattlepi.com staff pulled dozens of archived photos and a few articles about the bridge and are posting them here – a way to share some of the historical images we have in our archive.

The bridge – officially called the George Washington Memorial Bridge – was dedicated Feb. 22, 1932, which was the 200th anniversary of Washington’s birthday. Then-president Herbert Hoover pressed a telegraph key that severed a silk barrier across the span and released flags furled over each end. The ceremony was broadcast across the western United States by NBC radio.

A photo that ran the following day in the P-I shows the bridge packed with thousands of spectators for the Monday morning ceremony.

Click here to see a gallery of 39 bridge photos. Follow this link to download a PDF of ceremony coverage, which includes the photo of the crowded bridge.

The day of the bridge dedication, the president of West Coast Construction, the general contractors for the bridge approaches said the structure would be more important for the international highway than the suspension bridge completed months before across the Hudson River in New York. That bridge also was named in honor of Washington.

Before Interstate 5, that stretch of Aurora Avenue North was part of Pacific Highway 1, which in Washington went from Canada to the Oregon border. The Twin Teepees was among the restaurants on the route, built as roadside attractions.

West Coast Construction Company also worked on the Spokane Street Bridge, Cleveland High School, six other Seattle schools, several commercial buildings and apartments.

The bridge was completed for $5,060,000, West Coast Construction president E.R. Erickson told a P-I reporter in 1932.

The Aurora Bridge was designated by the Seattle engineering firm Jacobs and Ober, whose principal engineers were Major Joseph Jacobs and Captain Ralph Ober, according to Historylink.org.

Ober died in August 1931, about six months before the bridge was dedicated.

When the bridge was dedicated in 1932, officials estimated 10,000 vehicles would drive across it daily. In 2008, neighbors at a fence meeting were told more than 100,000 vehicles cross the bridge daily.

The bridge is 2,945 feet long, 70 feet wide and 167 feet above Lake Union – about about the height of a 15-story building, according to the State Department of Transportation. None of the traffic lanes are more than 11 feet across.

It’s now listed on the state and national historical registers. The Landmarks Preservation Board, the state Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation have been part of the suicide prevention fence approval process.

Since the first jumper leapt from the span in January 1932, a month before the bridge officially opened, more than 230 people have jumped, including a former SeaTac City Council member.

In 1996, P-I reporter Dan Raley spoke to several people who had jumped off the Aurora Bridge and survived – and learned they had a zeal for life. Read his story here.

Newspapers, including the Seattle P-I, often listed names and sometimes photos of jumpers in the 1970s and early 80s. Though many people still jump each year, names most often aren’t published to dissuade future jumpers.

Jack Stuart Jr. jumped over the Aurora Bridge rail Friday the 13th in September 1974 — driven to despair over a failing marriage. He survived but lost sight in his right eye

For a story about the fence in 2008, Stuart told the P-I he liked the suicide-barrier plan.

“A tall fence that prohibits a person from doing it,” he said, “(and) might give him a chance to think things over a bit.”

The worst act of violence on the Aurora Bridge happened Nov. 27, 1998. As Metro driver Mark McLaughlin rolled his bus onto the bridge, a deranged passenger said nothing and started firing at him.

Passengers screamed as the bus swerved through oncoming traffic, crashed through a guardrail, plunged 40 feet and split in half. McLaughlin and a passenger died. Thirty-three people were injured, and the shooter committed suicide.

Follow this link and this link to read the initial P-I stories from Nov. 28, 1998. A follow-up story from seattlepi.com news gatherer Scott Sunde is available here.

The crime prompted tougher security on buses, including a special transit police force.

Each year on the anniversary of the tragic incident, McLaughin’s former colleagues put tribute to him on the bridge.